Public Sector Budgeting and Financial Management course africa

Public Sector Budgeting and Financial Management

Course Description

Public sector budgeting is the means by which public resources are allocated and, as such, are central to the role of government. Public financial management concerns the mobilisation of resources on the one hand and the management of expenditures on the other hand. For these reasons, budgeting and financial management are core to the economic and public sector reform programs in most countries. With growing pressures for enhanced service delivery and the challenges of budgetary crises and fiscal shocks, improved budget processes and innovative financial management techniques are especially critical in developing and emerging economies. This course provides participants with the fundamentals of public sector budgeting and financial management and equips them with the requisite practical skills for understanding, analysing and preparing budgets. It covers management of expenditures, the budget cycle, the budget process including players and the strategies they employ, planning, drafting budgets, execution, taxation, accounting, auditing and evaluation to complete a cycle.

Public Sector Budgeting and Financial Management (Pretoria, South Africa)

  • Public Financial Management professionals
  • Budget analysts
  • Administrators and officials in ministries of finance and planning
  • Managers of public enterprises
  • Development officers
  • Accountants
  • Auditors
  • Economists
  • Senior managers in government
  • Anybody who seeks to broaden their knowledge and improve their skills in Public Sector Budgeting and Financial Management

At the end of the training participants will be able to:

  • Understand the principles of financial management for donor/grant funded projects.
  • Appreciate how financial management and budgeting are interrelated.
  • Understand project finance and budgeting.
  • Understand the fundamentals of public sector budgeting and financial management
  • Interpret and reflect on simple public sector financial statements
  • Understand how governments raise finance through various means
  • Gain comprehensive insight into the budget preparation: from decentralised responsibility to autonomous institutions
  • Comprehend how auditing is conducted in public sector organisations
  • Understand how public sector organisations are held accountable to the public
  • Understand and discuss the inspection of state finances on best-practices in monitoring, reporting and spending reviews of the budget
  • Familiarise with several other important financial management activities
  • Overview and introduction to public sector budgeting and the budget process
  • How public budgeting fits into the macroeconomic framework
  • Budget and macro-economy
  • Public finance and economic growth
  • Budget and stabilisation policy
  • Financing the budget and budget deficits
  • Financial programming
  • Revenue forecasting techniques
  • Management and organisation of budget processes
  • Alternative budget frameworks including medium-term expenditure framework
  • Input-control and output-oriented performance or results-based budgeting techniques
  • Balanced scorecard approaches to budgeting and management
  • Budget as an instrument of managerial performance
  • Monitoring and evaluation of budget performance
  • Budget implementation, cash management, and budget monitoring techniques
  • How public financial management interfaces with politics and political choices
  • Negotiation techniques and conflict resolution
  • Indicators of budget policy, institutions, and processes
  • Fiscal transparency standards and assessment
  • Fiscal decentralisation and budgeting
  • Capital budgeting, cost-benefit, and cost effectiveness analyses
  • Budgeting and poverty reduction strategies
  • Debt management
  • Role, budgeting and management of development assistance
  • Fiscal aspects of external and domestic debt management
  • Auditing and accountability
  • Understanding public governance
  • Using financial management to enhance the performance of public organisations
  • Understanding financial statements

The training approach is highly interactive. It uses a mixture of presentations by the facilitator and by participant(s), group or individual exercises, use of case studies and role plays. These proven learning techniques enhance understanding and retention of covered issues.